Trademarks granted on Mies van der Rohe’s 1929 furniture designs.

Knoll has received trademark registrations on several Mies van der Rohe furniture designs.  (NYTimes Article). These pieces, originally designed in 1929, have been increasingly copied by furniture importers.  A Knoll spokesman noted that the registration “gives a green light to U.S. customs to stop unauthorized products from reaching this country.”  Knoll’s licensed version of the Barcelona Chair retails at just under $5,000.  Ernest Beck reported that the registration has the potential to “reduce the availability of replicas of [the] classic modern furniture.”

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a famous German architect who left for Chicago in the late 1930’s to head the architecture program at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He is known for the International Style of Modernism and for his catch-phrase “less is more.”